The Guardian: Mind Your Language

A Challenge To The Guardian: It's time to drop the word 'homosexual'

Gary Nunn, Guardian Mind Your Language Blog.
A good piece, but my main spat with The Guardian is how they more regularly use the ludicrously out-of-touch phrase "gays" (25,153 times according to their search engine), as opposed to "homosexuals" (8,937).
This contravenes The Guardian's Style Guide which says;
'gay - should be used as an adjective rather than a noun: a gay man, gay people, gay men and lesbians not "gays and lesbians"'
Gay men only use "gays" as an ironic dig at bigots.
I keep bringing it up with The Guardian Style people, and they always agree it's daft and offensive - so flip knows how all these "gays" keep slipping through the net.